Page:More Australian legendary tales.djvu/114

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More Australian Tales

the top of the mountain still seemed high above them, and even so at the end of the second and third day, for the route was circuitous and long; but on the fourth day they reached the summit. There they saw a stone excavation into which bubbled up a spring of fresh water, from which they drank thirstily, and found it so invigorated them as to make them lose all feeling of weariness, which had previously almost prostrated them. They saw at a little distance from the spring circles of piled up stones. They went into one of these, and almost immediately they heard the sound of a gayandy, the medium through which Wallahgooroonbooan's voice was heard. Wallahgooroonbooan was the spirit messenger of Byamee. He asked the wirreenuns what they wanted there, where the sacred lore of Byamee was told to such as came in search of knowledge. They told him how dreary the earth had looked since Byamee had left it, how the flowers had all died, and never bloomed again. And though Byamee had sent the wahlerh, or manna, to take the place of the long-missed honey, yet they longed to see again the flowers making the earth gay as once it had been.

Then Wallahgooroonbooan ordered some of the attendant spirits of the sacred mountain to lift the wirreenuns into Bullimah, where fadeless flowers never ceased to bloom. Of these the wirreenuns might gather as many as they could hold in their hands. Then the spirits would lift them back into the sacred circle on the summit of Oobi Oobi, whence they must return as quickly as possible to their tribes.

As the voice ceased the wirreenuns were lifted up through an opening in the sky, and set down in a land of beauty,